Construction of south Dublin flood scheme promised 13 years ago to start soon

South Dublin flood defences, promised following severe flooding in October 2011, in which a nurse was drowned in her basement flat, are finally to get under way this year.

Flood risk assessments were ordered for the river Poddle, which flows from Cookstown west of Tallaght into the Liffey in Dublin city centre, following the 2011 floods during which the river broke its banks after almost 90mm of rain fell in six hours. More than 1,250 properties were flooded, many along the Dodder, including the home of hospice nurse Celia Ferrer de Jesus, who died when she became trapped in the basement of a house on Parnell Road, Harold’s Cross.

The Poddle, which flows above ground through Tallaght, Templeogue and Kimmage but is largely covered from Harold’s Cross to the city centre where it meets the Liffey near Temple Bar, had seen an increase in flooding since the 1980s. During Hurricane Charlie in 1986 overflows from the river flooded several houses in Harold’s Cross, with subsequent floods in 1993, 2000 and 2008 also causing significant property damage with garden walls falling into the river at a number of locations.

The 2011 flood was the most severe in terms of loss of life and damage to property, with €127 million in estimated damages citywide and €30-€40 million of it attributed to Poddle flooding.

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In 2013 a draft Poddle flood risk management options report was published. The report, finalised the following year, recommended two options which it said should be subject to further study. One involved flood walls, sealing manholes, and upstream storage at Tymon Park in Tallaght, while the other also included flood walls and sealing manholes with a diversion of the Poddle into the river Dodder.

Following further studies and public consultation, the second option was discounted due to concerns it would increase flooding along the Dodder.

In response to questions in the Dáil in July 2015 Simon Harris, then Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, said subject to successful completion of the planning process “and the continued availability of funding, it is hoped to be in a position to commence construction of the main scheme works in 2017″.

In its capital programme report for 2016-2018 South Dublin County Council said the Office of Public Works (OPW) had approved the draft design brief for the flood alleviation scheme. “In the interest of expediency and as this project straddles both Dublin City and South Dublin, Dublin City Council is currently completing the tender documents to go to tender for a consultant for this scheme,” the report said.

In 2018 consultant engineers Nicholas O’Dwyer Ltd were appointed to design the scheme. In 2019 the OPW said an application for the scheme would be made to An Bord Pleanála in the fourth quarter of 2019 with “construction to commence early 2020″.

An application was finally submitted to An Bord Pleanála in February 2020, and after more than three years, permission for the flood relief scheme was granted in June of last year.

Gerry O’Connell, senior engineer with Dublin City Council’s flood division, said the Bord Pleanála stage had taken considerably longer than expected, but he said there were “a lot of challenges with the scheme” with more than 20 statutory agencies involved and “a lot of local representations”.

Construction of the €10 million project is expected to start in Tymon Park in late January or early February, with the full works due for completion by the end of 2026.

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